Reckless Fortune, page 15
“Autumn,” he said, as if he was chiding her, even as he sank down on his elbows and buried his fingers into her hair. “I’m always going to have you covered.”
Then he thrust inside of her at last.
And died, there and then, but what a way to go.
Autumn was lush and wild beneath him. The deeper he went, the harder he sank into her, the more she came alive. She wrapped her legs around him, tight, as if holding him close and telling him to hurry up in one.
So he slowed down.
Every particle of his being wanted to let go, to pound himself home, but instead, he went slow. Not because he was afraid of finding out that he was a minuteman after all. But because it was better to build a fire, one bit of kindling at a time, than it was to pour gasoline over everything and use a lighter.
Not when they were already burning this bright.
Bowie settled in. He bent his face to hers and took her mouth, deep and claiming, even as he moved inside her.
And he kept going until she began to break apart. Only then did he speed up. Only then did he let himself go, making her buck and shatter all over again as he joined her in that sweet free fall.
For a long while, there was only that shattering, as if they were tumbling end over end in space, wrapped up tight around each other.
Bowie didn’t know if he fell asleep, or maybe passed out from the glory of it all, but either way she was tucked up beside him when he could think again. He rolled out of the bed, fully aware that there was not one part of him that wanted to leave her, and went into the bathroom. He handled the condom, threw some water on his face, and opted not to study himself in the mirror.
That was tomorrow’s problem.
When he came back out, Autumn was sitting up, her arms wrapped around her knees. He took some time examining her face as he walked back to bed. He braced himself because he expected vulnerability. Distance. Maybe some kind of joke.
Instead, her eyes lit up when she focused on him and her smile got mysterious again.
“That was not a minute,” she said. “That was a great many minutes.”
Chastising him, he was pretty sure.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, darlin’,” he drawled. “I know how much you hate disappointment.”
Her eyes gleamed. “I’m just fascinated by the psychology that would compel you to act like you expected to be really, really bad at that. When clearly, you’re not.”
“It’s not like there’s a grading system, Autumn. You either have chemistry or you don’t.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever believed in chemistry,” she said, but she was still smiling. “I was sure it didn’t really exist. That it was just what people called all the beer they drank in retrospect. I’m so happy to be wrong.”
And probably, he should start thinking with his big head. Probably it was time to lay down a little distance of his own. Because sooner or later, he would have to think about this, and he didn’t think that was going to be pretty. He was a little bit surprised it hadn’t already walloped him.
Then again, Autumn was still naked in his bed, he had the taste of her in his mouth and everywhere else, and he was already ready again.
He couldn’t seem to think about anything but that.
So instead, he matched her smile with one of his own.
“You don’t have to believe in chemistry. We still have it.” He crawled up the length of the bed, watching her smile grow wider the closer he got. “But don’t take my word for it. Let me show you.”
And that was what he did. Over and over. Until the new light found them again, tangled up in his bed, to tell them it was morning.
He thought maybe they’d slept a bit, though there was no telling. She was spread out over his chest and he could see smudges from the night’s exertion beneath her eyes, but that didn’t take away from the brilliance of her hazel gaze when she finally looked at him.
Now was definitely time, he told himself sternly. He needed to say . . . something that would sweep away the moonlight and any thoughts of rites and rituals and lay down the law. Something he’d never found hard before.
“There’s only one thing that could make this better,” Autumn told him, her eyes sparkling, brighter than any summer moon.
He shouldn’t take the bait. He should do what he knew he had to, and end this here. Now. No matter how little he wanted to do that.
But instead he found his hand on her face and his thumb moving up, then down, stroking her cheek. “What’s that?”
She beamed at him in that way of hers, as if all the light he’d ever need in the course of a dark year was right here, and he lost his place again. That easily.
“We get to do this camping, Bowie,” she said, like it was Christmas morning and she already had the best presents, and how was he supposed to defend against that? Especially when she let out a little sound of delight. “How cool is that?”
Eleven
Well,” Autumn said a moment later, when there’d been nothing but silence. And what looked like all kinds of complications on Bowie’s face to match it, not that she was parsing. Her sisters always made it clear that no one liked parsing. “This is awkward.” But she smiled at him because the truth was, she didn’t feel awkward. She felt amazing. “I had no idea that you were so opposed to camping. I hate to break it to you, but that seriously dents your Alaskan off-grid street cred.”
For a moment she thought he wouldn’t laugh, or that maybe he was planning to fight it off, but then he gave in and let one out. Maybe it was a rueful sort of laugh, but she’d take it. It was better than the way he’d stared at her. As if he was about to do a little bit of that heartbreaking she knew was coming.
Knowing it was coming didn’t mean she wanted it to come now.
But instead he laughed and then he turned her over, still laughing, as he moved with her so he could prop himself above her. Beautifully, gloriously Bowie. And better still, he slid himself between her legs.
Where she was ready for him. Again. Always.
She’d had no idea that it was possible to be so . . . voracious. Even if she’d known that people out there could be, she would have found the notion that she was one of them hilarious. Before last night.
Autumn was fairly certain her whole life would now be divided into before a midsummer night in Alaska and after. She had already accepted that. But this was the first moment of after and she didn’t have the slightest idea how to handle it. When she’d always known how, exactly, to handle everything. All her life.
“I love camping,” Bowie told her, as if he was outraged at such an attack. But not too outraged. Because his eyes were gleaming again, in that way she knew now was pure entertainment. “I don’t know what it’s like down there in your soft, manageable Montana valley of peaches and honey and whatever else—”
“Yes. So manageable. We’re known for that. That’s why we have snow ten months of the year, temperatures that make people in warmer climates cry, and a whole lot of ornery grizzlies. Only some of them bears.”
If Bowie got her little Montana State reference he chose to ignore it.
“Up here, everyday life is a lot like camping. You don’t need to make such a big deal out of it.”
“I bet you’ve always been this kind of guy, haven’t you?” she asked, though she had to stop and suck in a delighted little breath as he moved, rubbing his length through her slickness. Using her own softness against her. “No matter the situation, you’re sure a big deal is being made of it and you, by God, need everyone to know that you won’t stand for it. You will remain detached at all costs.”
She was a little breathless when she finished, and only partly because of the way he was moving against her. Teasing her. There was also that dangerous glint in his dark blue gaze, like all the Montana nights he was slandering.
“No matter what, I fly the plane,” he drawled, and even his voice seemed to snag in all the most interesting places inside her. “I don’t conduct research on how other people want to fly the plane. I don’t need to have emotions about it. I just do it. I’m glad you’re catching on.”
But he was leaning down as he said it, smiling as he set his mouth to the line of her throat.
“I understand if you’re afraid to go camping with me,” she told him, though it was hard to talk, what with all the heat careening around inside of her and the fact that she couldn’t seem to stop herself from laughing. In pure joy. “Many people wilt before my indomitable spirit and determined nature.”
“Darlin’.” His voice was more properly a growl then. Inside her, it was like flame. “I don’t wilt.”
And then he set about proving it.
Turning her inside out with that same lazy skill he’d been using all night.
And Autumn finally understood exactly why people would choose to do something over and over again even when they knew it wasn’t wise. He was that narcotic.
He also bore absolutely no resemblance to her poor post–high school boyfriend, who she’d thought had showed her how all this worked. In any respect. And at some point, she’d promised herself repeatedly throughout the night, she was going to have to step back, take a breath, and possibly make a few bullet points about how woefully unprepared she’d been for the Bowie Fortune experience.
And how little it turned out she knew after all.
Who could have guessed that sex could be so different depending on who you were having it with?
It was even lighter outside when they woke again, tangled up in each other as if they’d slept that way forever. And maybe there was too much forever in her gaze, because one moment they were looking at each other, and the next he smoothed his hand over her cheek. Then kissed her. On the forehead.
Before she could frown properly at that, because it felt dismissive, he was rolling away and then stalking off across his bedroom floor. She wanted to complain, but couldn’t, because the view was magnificent.
“We’d better get going,” he said over his shoulder. “Soon.”
“I thought you said we had to pick out a place on the map.” Autumn yawned as she pushed herself up onto her elbows. “And if I’m remembering it right, you also cast aspersions on my ability to pick a decent place at all.”
“You’re from the Lower Forty-eight, baby. I’m not casting aspersions. You just don’t know any better.” He stopped in his bathroom doorway to deliver that, complete with a grin.
“I’ll have you know that I’m actually renowned throughout the Bitterroot Valley for my perception and discernment.”
Bowie only laughed, then disappeared through the door. And before she knew it, she was up and on her feet, trailing after him into his bathroom. Where she could only admire the things she’d been too giddy and wowed all night to notice, like the fact that even his shower had a window with a view. Why not? It wasn’t like neighbors were an issue here.
Something she reminded herself of repeatedly when she joined him in the hot water and he lifted her up, tilting her away from him so she had to brace her hands on that window as he made them both groan. All that heat and wonder, and none of the worry about ending up on the neighborhood social media page.
“It’s going to be a little bit of a flight,” he told her later, when she was wrapped in a towel, sleepy-eyed, and had never felt more alive in her life. “And maybe a little bit of a hike, depending. But don’t worry, Autumn. I won’t make fun of you when you get left behind.”
“Liar,” she replied cheerfully.
Even as she vowed to herself there and then that she would literally die before she lagged behind him in any fashion.
After she dried herself off, she left him up there in that sprawling, magical room. She made her way back down the spiral stairway to get ready. Assuming that was even possible after the wildest night of her life.
It was hard to sort through her own memories and accept that yes, that had been her. All over that man. Under him, beside him, before him. He was so athletic and she . . . had simply given herself over to the heat and the joy of it all.
“Focus,” she muttered to herself as she charged down the stairs. “You can daydream over the campfire.”
Right. Camping. That felt like a gift, because unlike the other off-grid-ish tasks she’d completed so far—or had tried to complete, anyway—Autumn felt pretty good about camping. She might not have been foraging for food her entire life, or fishing for her dinner, but she’d spent a lot of time camping. When they were little, they used to camp out on the ranch on summer evenings, toasting marshmallows and then falling asleep with sticky fingers. She remembered lying there in the tent she shared with her sisters, giggling while the Milky Way pressed in above them, heavy with stars.
She still liked to camp, especially when her sisters were home. Sometimes they’d hike up into the mountains and go too far to turn around in one day, just so they could set up a tent and marinate in being that far away from everyone.
But she’d never gone so far into the backcountry that she needed a plane.
She sighed a little to herself as she marched into her guest room and surveyed her things. Mountains were always tricky, whether in the Lower 48 or not, and always required careful layers. She preferred performance wool to fleece, because all it took was getting a fleece wet on a cold hike once—and then the miserable night that had followed— to turn her against it for life. She had her sturdy hiking boots and her favorite hiking pants, not too stiff and not too stretchy, that she’d been putting to the test for years. She dressed quickly, stashing what she thought she’d need for a week or so in her backpack. Long underwear and cozy socks. A knit hat because her head always got cold. All the bug repellant, because mosquitoes were considered the state birds around here for a reason, and she’d had a layer of DEET on her at all times since she’d arrived. Her trusty headlamp, because no one wanted to stand around holding a flashlight in the dark, and everything else she could think of that she might need for this adventure.
Then she stopped, standing there in the middle of the room, where she’d been attaching her sleeping bag to her pack, because she’d had sex with Bowie Fortune.
A lot of sex, in fact. More sex in the last twelve hours than she’d had in her entire previous life.
Surely she must be profoundly changed. Inside and out.
“You have to be,” she muttered to herself. She hadn’t even known her body could do the things he’d done to her last night . . . Though clearly, he’d known.
She told herself it was a good thing she appreciated knowledge as much as she did. Yes, came a voice inside, dry and amused, you appreciate the knowledge he demonstrated so amply last night. Otherwise she might be tempted to collapse into a giggly little ball right there on her thick rug. Or text her sisters in ALL CAPS and emojis.
Autumn wanted to pretend that she didn’t do either of those things because she was so dignified and mature. But she was all too aware that the only reason she didn’t was because it would defeat the purpose. Which was getting back to Bowie as quickly as she could.
Because she’d lived a very long life not kissing him, and not getting to roll around with him naked. And she couldn’t think of a single reason why, having now done both—and a lot of both—she would ever wish to return to that previous state.
No thank you.
Her hair was damp, so she combed it out with her fingers, then braided it loosely on one side. Then she swung up her pack and headed out to find him.
Bowie wasn’t in the kitchen, though she could see there was a fresh French press waiting for her. She smiled at that, absurdly touched, as if it were a bouquet of flowers. Although, in truth, she’d never understood the whole bouquet-of-flowers thing. She’d always liked her flowers best when they were connected to plants and in the ground where they belonged, so they could bloom again and again.
She carried her coffee with her as she wandered through the rabbit warren of the house, eventually making her way outside onto the breezeway. It was a cool morning. She fancied she could feel the hint of fall there in the breeze, even though it was, properly, the first day of summer.
Autumn didn’t want to think about summer beginning, because she really didn’t want to think about it ending. Not today. Not now.
Out on the lake she saw a pair of birds wheeling overhead. And she thought that right now, what she wanted was to go camping. Somewhere indisputably Alaskan, and hopefully inhospitable, because that could only make what she and Bowie were doing here seem that much more impressive. Because yes, she was looking forward to time in a tent and around a campfire, away in the wilderness with Bowie.
But she also still wanted to win.
She walked into the hangar, expecting to find him with one of his beloved Cessnas, but he was nowhere to be seen. Curious, she turned back around and retraced her steps. Once inside the house again, she headed for the one section she’d never really ventured near, set off to the side where it could be accessed from another door along the breezeway, though he’d told her he never used it. And that was where she found him, sitting in a room that was clearly his office. He was surrounded by mountains of papers, a computer screen, and all the other trappings of what was clearly an actual business. Not just a plane fetish.
Autumn could admit that she’d wondered.
He’d swiveled his chair away from the door so he could stare out the window. Another view of the lake, blue and beautiful and he was making low sounds of gravelly assent into his cell phone in reply to whoever he had on the call.
So she really couldn’t do anything but stand there, quietly, and wait for him to be finished. It wasn’t her fault that gazing at him made her feel . . . funny. In a whole lot of good ways, sure. Very good ways.
But in a lot of complicated other ways, too.
Because she hadn’t missed that arrested look on his face when they’d woken up the first time this morning. And maybe if she was as forthright as she’d always believed she was, she would’ve gone ahead and asked him about it. But she hadn’t.
